Earth Day got off to a growing start at Costa Mesa High School, where high school students guided their younger peers in a native plant workshop during lunch break Monday.

The students kicked off a week of sustainability-related celebrations with the native plant workshop, sending students from Costa Mesa Middle School home with soon-to-be California poppies grown in recycled plastic bottles. It was one of more than a dozen activities meant to engage students with the principles of environmental stewardship.

“The middle schoolers are still young, so it’s good to get sustainability in their minds at a young age,” said junior Jonathan Monge, who was helping run Monday’s “recycling relay,” in which participants rushed to recycle the right materials in the right bins while tied to a partner.

Monge and his fellow students in the high school’s Environmental and Marine Academy organized the events for Earth Week. The academy is a three-year program designed to teach students the values of sustainability. Students go on field trips and take classes that could steer them toward careers in sustainability. The academy is coordinated by Cristen Rasmussen, who also teaches AP Environmental Science at the high school.

Rasmussen said the best way for young people to understand sustainability is to learn it from other young people. Hearing about recycling, green planting and energy efficiency from upperclassmen gives middle school students role models on the topic, Rasmussen said.

Many of the middle school students received extra credit or class credit for participating in the events, which also included a terrarium-building workshop, campus cleanups and displays on tide pool protection.

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